


57:50

by Tassos



Category: Lost Moon - Lovell
Genre: Gen, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-17
Updated: 2009-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:28:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassos/pseuds/Tassos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Room 210 is crowded and Sy's not sure he can breathe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	57:50

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thecolourclear](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=thecolourclear).



Room 210 was a mess before the White Team descended upon it. A number of backup controllers and engineers were already there, along with folded lengths of printouts from the consoles that covered every surface, ready to be read after the mission, but now slip-sliding around as they were knocked by a dozen hands as the rest of the controllers made space for themselves. An orange cascade of paper fell in front of Sy Liebergot, tripping him a bit until he disentangled his feet and kicked the ream under the table. Buck was in the seat ahead of him so he leaned back in the now empty space on the table, a sigh escaping.

Sy was very awake. He couldn't even pretend that this was a dream or at worst a nightmare. His O2 tank, his fuel cells, his command module - all dead in the water 200,000 miles from earth. His ship had betrayed them, and Sy couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else - anything else - he could have done to pull her back together.

Gene brushed by, last in, and squeezed through to the front of the room. He paused for a second before he spoke, eyes gliding over each of them. Sy didn't look away by force of will. He still had a job to do no matter how inadequate he felt for it.

"Consumables," Gene began. "Water, power, oxygen. The LEM's all we got so we have to make its resources last till reentry, and then get them home." He left unsaid what they all knew: the LEM was designed for two men for two days. They had three and at least four days till they could get them home. Gene's tone held conviction, but Sy couldn't help thinking about what would happen if they couldn't do it. Lovell, Haise, and Swigart would die, and with them maybe NASA too, and maybe all because Sy wasn't good enough, had made the wrong call, hadn't thought of the right solution.

Gene was still talking, but Sy didn't hear much of the rest of his speech until the end. "Failure is not an option."

_Pull it together_, Sy told himself. He was a mission controller for a reason, after all, and the job wasn't done.

Gene put senior EECOM John Arron in charge along with Bill Peters and Arnie Aldrich. The White Team TELMU, Bob Heselmyer had already been sent back to swap for Peters, but John grabbed Sy before he too was sent to take the senior EECOMs place on Maroon Team, the shift after the current one. He slapped Sy on the back and said, "I need the numbers for a normal PC+2 burn," and now Sy was wrist deep in EECOM charts going through the power requirements, system by system during a normal burn, making notes where he thought it could be shaved. As soon as he had a system done, he ran it to the front of the room to John, Gene, and Bill, then went to work on the next.

He was calm, focused, as in control as he'd been when he'd been in the hot seat, or so Sy kept repeating to himself until he almost believed it. It was just another job, another abstract problem that had a firm mathematical answer. Now that he wasn't in the control room, he could get on with the details of getting the astronauts home.

But his fingers kept shaking on his slide rule when he did the power calculations, making it difficult to slide at all when he pressed too hard to make his hands still.

"Hey Sy," Buck, GNC, came up beside him. "Do you have the amp readings at time of powerdown for the batteries?"

"Yeah, sure." Sy scrambled through his printouts. "You checking the nav system?"

"Yeah. Gotta see if we can afford to correct the attitude if the ship's not where she's supposed to be. They were moving around a lot up there and with the O2 venting . . ." He didn't need to finish. The both knew there was no telling how much the explosion and venting had pushed the space craft out of course alignment, especially with the debris cloud Lovell had reported was obscuring their view of the stars.

Sy found the most recent stack of numbers, eyes catching on the steady decline of O2 he'd witnessed first hand on console not four hours ago, line after simple line of numbers. The sight was enough to send an unexpected shiver down Sy's spine, and he swallowed hard before finding what Buck needed and reading it off.

"Thanks."

Sy felt him go and the murmur resume among the GUIDO, GNC, and FIDO, but his eyes were back on the O2 numbers, skipping away only to find the drop in power in the fuel cells and the moment he told Gene to order them shut off.

His stomach flipped over and he had to get out of there.

Sy didn't throw up. He made it to the bathroom but ended up leaning against he wall next to the water fountain just outside, eyes closed as he tried to calm his heart rate. It was so stupid, feeling like this. He was a professional controller. The job came with stress, and it was his job to solve the problems that occurred, not stand here concentrating on his breathing and pressing his hands between his body and the wall so they wouldn't shake. Christ, he couldn't get them to stop shaking.

"Sy? You okay?" Gene's voice startled Sy upright, steadied only by Gene's hand on his shoulder. "Hey, it's okay. You look a little pale."

"No, I'm fine." Sy took a deep breath and tried a smile. "Sorry, I was just, uh..." He waved in the general vicinity of the bathroom.

The concern didn't leave Gene's face. "Uh huh." He had a notepad under his other arm; Sy was probably keeping him from a meeting with his stupid meltdown.

"It wasn't your fault, you know."

"What? Yeah, I know."

"You didn't go up there and cause the explosion," Gene went on, and it sounded ridiculous except for how he was stone cold serious.

"No, I know," said Sy because he did. "But . . ." He cut himself off before he added _I feel like I did._ That was the crux of it. Sy sighed and pushed his glasses up to rub his eyes.

"Listen, Sy," said Gene, softer than he expected. "We got dealt a shit hand of cards today, and you did your job and kept it from getting worse." Gene waited until Sy finally looked at him again. "No one blames you, and you're not alone here. It's going to take every one of us to get 13 home. But we're getting them home, you hear me? You didn't kill them, and they aren't going to die because you are going to help get them back."

Gene's certainty made Sy ashamed of his earlier doubt. He'd been trying to tell himself the same thing but hearing it from Gene finally made him believe it.

"Now," Gene shifted back on his heels. "Go to the restroom, splash some water on your face, and get back in there. I gave Aaron the power of God, but even our missile man is going to need all hands on deck."

Sy cracked a smile at that, a genuine one. "Thank God he's here."

"Definitely," said Gene, smiling too, and clapping Sy on the back. "I've got a meeting to get to, but I expect to see you hard at work when I get back."

"You got it, Gene." Sy nodded firmly and didn't watch as Gene continued down the hall to the stairwell, instead heading for the washroom as instructed.

Looking at himself in the mirror, he said, "We're getting them home."

John looked up when Sy returned to 210 and waved him over. "I'm going to have you start looking at reentry," he said and rattled off the latest ETA.

Sy nodded and went back to his printouts and his slide rule with steady hands.


End file.
